InvisibleBlack

This is my old profile, just in case someone's curious:

They say brevity is the soul of wit. Let's see if we can manage it.

(Failed. Should have said "Less is more".)

I'm male, single, in my early forties, and dominant. I'm intelligent, educated, employed, in shape and all those other good adjectives. (I'm humble, too.)

I have a pretty wide-ranging (and unique) list of interests - I can quote Buckaroo Banzai or Hamlet, rebuild a carburetor (I know, I know - nobody uses them anymore), bench my own weight and/or make a pretty mean dry martini. In the past year I've been to Cancun, London and New Zealand. I own so many books I've run out of places to put them.

If I had to sum up my philosophy it's two-fold: 'life is meant to be lived' & 'you do the best you can with what you've got'.

I tend to a pretty powerful focus. This means if I'm paying attention to you, you will feel like the world revolves around you. It also means that if I'm doing something else, you will feel like there isn't even a universe unless you're doing it with me. This can take some getting used to.

As regards the point of this site - I am much more into the D/s part of BDSM than anything else. The rest is just trappings. What I'm looking for is that moment of letting go, that point of release and surrender. The path to getting there is more interesting to me than anything else and, in my experience, every woman is unique and there is no 'fixed' set of steps that will work. Finding what works and what doesn't - what both excites and terrifies her - what she'll run to and what she'll run from - the entire interaction of getting closer and closer to those moments - for me that's the whole point and then, as the relationship expands, the trust, the control, the ability to excite or to curb - sometimes with just a look or with a word - that's when I'm most satisfied.
I'm looking for something serious, something long term and something based on communication, understanding and trust.
I'm not terribly interested in something short term and I have no interest in an online relationship, cybering, phone sex or any sort of 'long distance' relationship unless it's going to lead to someone relocating in a fairly short time.

The women I find myself drawn to are attractive, intelligent and creative. I don't expect that to change.

(Yes. This is less. I'm wordy. I do not slot well into a 35-character limited text messaging Twitterized world. You get used to it.)

Two things...

First -

No one can promise they'll never hurt you, because at one time or another they will. The real promise is that, in the end, the time you spent together will be worth the pain that sometimes happened along the way.

Second -

If you aren't just a little bit depressed, then you aren't paying enough attention to what's going on in the world.

After an extended hiatus, I've found my way back to this site.

What happened in the interim - had a relationship that lasted several months and then didn't work out (there's a story there but I'll save it for another time), one of my dogs died, and work took a turn for the worse (although it's started improving). Overall, I can't say things have been superb.

It's time for a change. I'm working on what.

Yes. I have mail. I'll be replying to it very shortly. It's taking me forever to catch up.

As an aside - if you're interested in building a tesla coil, let me know. I've got all the pieces now.

Work is sending me to London tomorrow.

I've never been to London. I'd be excited except I'm pretty sure London in February isn't the ideal scenario.

Just for a couple of days - I fly back Friday.

Work is insane. Worked through the whole weekend.

Some days, it would be nice to have a break, y'know?

On the other, it's good to be employed in all this chaos.

Sometimes, it doesn't work.

Late Friday, I got sick. Not that namby-pamby "oh, I feel unwell" sick. The "oh my God, everything I ever ate in my entire life is having its revenge on me in the most horrible way possible" sick.

It was a seriously bad scene.

So I spent the better part of Friday night/morning either thrashing around on my bed semi-delerious or stumbling around in a daze. Sleep was out of the question.

So at about 4 AM I faced the hard question of "do I go to Cancun or not".

I am a stubborn cuss.

I went.

Having to cancel two other trips in the past 4 months (for non-health related reasons) played a big factor. I was damned if I was going to cancel another trip.

So I spent the better part of the weekend sick ina hotel room in Cancun. I got down to the beach maybe twice.

I finally started feeling like myself sometime Sunday night.

This morning I got back on the plane and flew home. I felt well enough to read a book on the flight (which ought to highlight just how sick I was). Oh. It was The Count of Monte Cristo, btw.

So, I only vaguely recall most of my weekend, was desperately ill, and couldn't even eat any spicy food.

Tomorrow, I go back to work.

I am the only person on the planet who gets Montezuma's revenge before going to Mexico.

(As an aside, Cancun was lovely. Everyone was friendly. It had the potential to be wonderful. I'll have to go back sometime when I'm actually functional.)

Found my passport. I fly to Cancun Saturday morning. Sometimes, it works.

So I'm thinking about taking Monday off and taking a long weekend. Flying somewhere warm and sunny. It would be nice to unwind for a couple of days.

Worked late. Got stuck in traffic coming home. Couldn't find my passport. By the time I did, it was late enough the kennel was closed so I couldn't check if I could board the dogs.

Guess that's for tomorrow.

I will admit that sometimes, not always but sometimes, I could use a Pepper Potts to my ersatz Tony Stark.

They changed the %#$@&#^ editor. Someone clue me in on how I can see the actual HTML underneath the text so I can crop out some of those <P>s. Thanks.

There's a number of things I wanted to comment on but time flew by faster than I thought it would so I'll have to scale it down. Let's see...

Do you care that I tore my finger on a bottle top? Probably not. It'll heal.

Do you really want my opinion on the last movie I saw? Eh. It'll keep. (It was Tron:Lgeacy, btw. I like science fiction. You'll get used to it.)

TPE? Ah. Okay, TPE.

I see a lot of people and a lot of profiles discuss TPE. To be blunt, some of you people are idiots and some of you have no clue what you're talking about. Total power exchange is just that total power exchange.

No one starts a relationship day one as a total exchange of power. You may say you are, but you're not. You don't know someone well enough day one to surrender everything. What you start with, even if you want TPE, is partial power exchange until you know someone well enough and trust them enough to move into total power exchange.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Some people may never get past partial power exchange.

There's nothing wrong with that, either.

The minute someone starts telling me that what they want is immediate and complete TPE, warning lights start flashing in the back of my head. TPE is something that is earned, both by the Dom and by the sub. TPE is something that comes over time. The total merger of your lives together to the point of utter surrender of everything and complete responsibility for everything is a huge event. It's not something you just stumble into and it's not something you just drop into out of the blue.

I would certainly expect someone to demonstrate what a superb submissive/slave they are before discussions about TPE came up. I would certainly hope that someone would want to see that a Dominant was competent and capable and more than some text on a screen or a smirk and a crop at some event before they gave up everything.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You can't force something to work. Either the dynamic is there or it's not. Either you're with someone with whom you can let go and be yourself long term or you're not. If it's going to work, you don't need to rush it. If it's not, nothing you do will make it work. If you were just dealt a bad hand, pushing more chips into the pot doesn't make the cards you've got any better.

Would I be willing to consider TPE?

Yes, with the right woman.

How would we go about getting there?

Do you understand - it's not something we'd work at. It would just happen. It would be a natural result of our interaction over time. We'd probably discuss it somewhere along the way but it would be more of a "I've noticed we're drifting way into TPE" than a "I want this and we're going to do it" kind of thing.

You with me here?

Is this drive for TPE I seem to be seeing the result of some widespread need to be in a relationship that intense all the time? Or is it just the fact that being able to say "I'm in a TPE relationship" is viewed as cooler than "just" being a submissive?

Wow, is it snowing out there. Must be a foot of snow down already. I put the little dog down (she's about 10-12 pounds) and she vanished into the snow. I had to dig her out.

The bigger one (he's about 25 pounds) loved it. He was having a snowy adventure.

Hopefully the roads will be plowed tomorrow or getting to work might be its own adventure.

'Night all. Hope you had fun over the holidays.

A couple of weeks ago I'm at this event - I'm not really looking for anything I'm just there to sort of unwind and chat and like that - and I end up talking to this woman. She's one of those subs who's got that sort of "been there, done that" attitude and is rather condescending about it. Not that I can necessarily fault her for it since a lot of Doms are, well, rather more talk than action, if you follow. Not that I'm claiming to be the be-all and end-all of dominance, as I've said before - I find a lot of the more complex and involved activities to be more time-consuming than I'm interested in. I'm all about the dynamic of the relationship rather than mastery of any specific kink - but I digress.

In any event, we're chatting and we end up discussing dominance and she says something like "What would you do that's different than every other Dom out there?". Now, in general I find putting someone on the spot like that isn't really fair - it's like demanding someone be clever or witty or whatever. Someone could be brilliant, funny and a comedic genius and not be able to come up with a choice bon mot on command.

So I look down at her and raise one eyebow (you have no idea how long I practiced that when I was a kid) and I smiled my lopsided smile and said "I would tie you down to the bed..." and I could see her eyes roll as this is probably what everyone else started with "...and I'd fill your belly button with brandy and set it on fire and drink a flaming shot from your navel" and I turned and walked away.

I don't know where that came from, I pretty much just pulled it out of thin air on the spur of the moment, but apparently it (or my disdain) worked for her. She wouldn't leave me alone for the rest of the evening. I'd like to say this was the start of something magical and wonderful - but it's not. As I told one of my friends at the event "Entitled, disinterested and condescending isn't my type". We did exchange e-mail addresses but I don't see a big future there as (as I've said before) I don't particualrly want to be in a continual struggle with my submissive.

Amusingly enough, periodically she gets drunk and sends me some of the most convoluted e-mails - followed the next morning by an e-mail apology. I guess the brandy shots thing has stuck in her mind.

The point of this little missive (aside from keeping you all amused) is that the genesis, the core of what makes things work is the dynamic of your relationship. Not any specific activity or set of activities or whatever. I suppose this is what seperates the kinksters from the lifestyle doms or submissives or whatever you'd care to call them.

I don't really care about whether someone wants to be wrapped in Saran wrap or hung upside down or whatever. I don't really get excited by any given activity and a lot of them I find cumbersome rather than exciting. What I'm looking for is a certain reaction to me and then what I'm interested in is finding whatever it is that triggers her submisiveness. Sometimes I get lucky and lock right onto it - even if it is brandy in the navel.

[Disclaimer: Don't try this at home, kids. We're trained professionals, here. There's me and there's Super Dave Osborne.]

Back from beyond. Gone for a couple of months.  I know, vanishing like that was rather rude.

The fact is, I met this woman and between that and work - well, my free time was gone and, to be honest, if I'm pursuing something with serious potential, things like spending my time on a dating site (and this site manages to eat time like nobody's business) just don't occur to me.

However, I doubt you care about any of that. Everyone wants the story - so here's the story:

I have this friend ... okay, friend is too strong a word ... I know this guy who's a promoter. He runs events and club nights and like that. So whenever he has a new night or a new opening, he invites every person he knows because he wants a big crowd (you with me here?). He calls me up one Thursday and he's like "You have GOT to come out tonight" and I go "Look. I'm tired. It's late. It's been a long day. I've got work tomorrow. No." and so on ... and he's whining at me and pleading and making noises no human being should make (don't think this is because I'm such a wonderful person,  I suspect he does this to everyone) and finally I go "Okay. Fine. Whatever. I'll make a cameo appearance, as long as I'm covered." and he goes "You are THE BEST".

So I'm standing there with a glass of whiskey under this (of all things) disco ball on a dance floor full of people talking and not dancing and winding my way through the crowd and I see this woman standing up against the wall by the bar.

She was about 5' 9" and had a sort of reddish-brown hair, green eyes and a pretty face but, really, there was something about her posture, something about the way she stood that made me go ROWF - and generally that means she's submissive.

So I walk up and say hi and we get to talking and ... well ... we hit it off like gangbusters. We have an amazing amount in common and we have wicked chemistry. It turns out she's a fashion model.

So we go out. And we go out again. And two weeks go by and we're going out. She's one of those submissives who doesn't know that she's a submissive and that can be a lot of fun.

So let's see ... the best part?

Driving across Honolulu on vacation coming back from shark cage diving, I put the top down on the car and sat back and looked around. She spotted a rainbow and I just smiled and said "Life is good".

The most exciting moment?

It's not what you think. We were making bourbon chicken and she knocked the bourbon over and set the entire top of the stove on fire. It took me a minute to put it out. It's been a while since the adrenaline surged like that. (Although it was fun later - "We do NOT set the stove on fire.")

The problem?

She was a compulsive liar. I don't cotton to deception at all. I became more and more aware of the fact that the things she was telling me didn't make sense or add up, and she only got worse when confronted with it (and I'm not a beat around the bush kind of guy). I now know more about pathological and compulsive lying that I ever really wanted to.

The only things she told me that were true were her name, the state she was born in and what she did for a living. Everything else was untrue. Where she went to school. Where she'd worked. Her age. What her parents did for a living. Everything. It was crazy. After a couple of months it was completely untenable. I don't know if you've ever dealt with a compulsive liar before, but until you have, it's unreal.

Finally, I sit her down and just said "Look. I know you've been saying things that just aren't true. If you just come clean now - admit it and tell me the truth and I'll just let it go and we can start fresh" and she couldn't do it. She's sitting there and lying to me and I know she's lying to me because I've actually found out her age and where she's from and like that and I can see she knows I know and she can't stop. That was it. I told her "We just can't do this anymore" and broke up with her.

I've said it a thousand times. Relationships are built on communication, understanding and trust. This had none of them and I don't need to spend my free waking hours locked in an endless struggle to find out what the woman I'm involved with is lying to me about today.

So after we break up, she calls me and texts me a batch of times and finally she tells me she got knocked down on the street and blacked out and lost a few hours and needs help and, of course, when I show up it turns out this isn't true. I sat her down (again) and said something along the lines of "I broke up with you because you could not stop lying to me and to try and get me back, you're making up stories and telling me lies. Do you understand the fundamental flaw here?"

It's a pity. I really liked her. My friends all think I'm crazy because, after all, she was a model and smoking hot and they can't seem to get their heads around the concept of "I don't care how hot she is if she can't tell me the truth" - although I suspect they would if they were actually in the situation. Maybe not. Guys are dumb.

So, took a little time to get back to my usual even keel since it's not fair to be out and about if you're on the rebound and now I'm back. That's about it.

Well. Okay. There's more, there always is, but this is pretty long for a journal entry. If you bump into me somewhere, ask. I can tell amazing stories - they're even all true.

I rarely get insomnia. Very rarely. Last night, for whatever reason, I could not sleep so finally I bailed on the idea and went for a long walk. It was a nice night. Gorgeous.

There's a certain true beauty to the night. It's a calmer, more elegant beauty than the day. Daytime is more noisy, more frenetic. Nighttime is more soothing.

So I'm thinking about a couple of things a friend of mine has been wrestling with in her relationship and I might as well lay it out here before I crash for the night.

In any relationship, if you truly care for the other person in your dynamic, whatever it is, you're vulnerable. It doesn't matter if you're Dominant or submissive. It doesn't matter if you're vanilla. That person has the power to hurt you. That's just the way it is. The more open you are, the more of yourself, your real self, that you reveal, the more vulnerable you are. It's inevitable.

People are especially uncomfortable about their sexual needs and desires. Many people go through their whole lives without really addressing them. Secretly fantasizing about something but never - never ever - talking about it, asking for it, or sometimes even really admitting it.

One of the strengths of a D/s relationship, if you do it well, is the honesty. The openness in this area. The ability to look someone you care about in the eyes and say "I need this and I want this and I want it with you" and to not be rejected. To be accepted for who you are and for what you really want, deep inside.

The risk of being vulnerable is the danger of being seen, truly and honestly seen, and being rejected and hurt. Or even of just seeing the disgust, or incomprehension, or shock in someone's eyes. Someone you hoped knew you.

The strength of being vulnerable is opening up like that and being accepted for who you are. Of having someone look deep inside of you, deeper than you've ever dared show anyone, and have them embrace you for who you are. Not put up with it. Not tolerate it. Not love you in spite of it. But want you exactly because of it. That's empowering. That's something that makes you stronger. That adds balance to the center of your world and, I believe, that's something that everyone needs.

I wrote this somewhere else but I'll add it here...

How does someone know they're dominant? You put your hand in her hair at the back of her head and pull her head back until she’s looking into your eyes and you can feel her pulse race and her breath come quicker and you know that she’s wet, and then she’s knows that you’re hard simply because of her response and then she’s more wet, and the feeling just cycles up from there – and you’re dominant and she’s submissive and that’s the whole point.

You don't get that if you can't be honest with each other, if you can't be open. You don't get that if you're afraid you might be rejected or that your partner, your lover might be repelled by you. You can't get there without taking a risk, and risk is scary. But past taking the risk is getting to where you understand and you know who you're with and that they know and understand you and that they want you for who you are.

And that's the whole point.

'night.

The latter half of 2009 wasn't very good. I've had two close relatives in the hospital and attended the funeral of another. I've had surgery, which had complications, and work has had a number of ups and downs. As such, things over the past six months have been sporadic at best.

I apologize for any delayed responses, lost threads, or lack of availability. Sometimes life just takes precedence.

I have a sort of gut feeling that 2010 is going to be better. Thanks to everyone who's been there and I hope that everyone has a grand new year.

Be well and be good.

We're building an office in San Francisco. Who has to go out and make sure that the construction is actually going according to plan?

Moi.

Is this a good thing?

Well...

The initial plan was I would fly out Wednesday night, sit in a meeting at 10 AM, tour the floor after that then get on a plane and fly back Thursday afternoon.

I managed to get across the idea that spending 16+ hours on a plane to spend two hours in SF wasn't really that great of an idea. I'll now be flying back Saturday so I at least have two days in SF.

What's in San Francisco to do?

     Recently, I’ve noticed a number of people complaining about trust or, more accurately, the lack thereof. That they have no one they can trust. That their friends aren’t trustworthy. There are variations on this theme, but the song remains the same. I find this particularly frightening because, in many cases, the people making these complaints know the same people I do ... and I believe that I know a large number of highly trustworthy people. Therefore, someone isn't seeing things clearly ... which is a matter of misperception ... or someone is missing something ... which is a lack of understanding.

     So I wanted to expound upon the concept of trust in a couple of ways. Before I go into specifics, I think we need to discuss trust, because there are various kinds of trust and definition of terms is key before we bounce around the ideas. Now according to my good friend Noah Webster, trust is defined as:

     When you say you “trust someone”, you can be saying a number of different things:

You could be saying that you have faith that someone will do what they say they will do. That they are reliable. They'll arrive when they say they will. If they say they'll help you change the head gasket on your engine, they will. If the show starts at 9:00 and you agree to meet at 8:30, they'll be waiting for you at the venue, tickets in hand, at 8:30. The opposite end of reliability is flakiness, which is a nicer way of saying that someone is unable to follow through on anything they commit to.

You could be saying that you are confident that they are exactly what they appear to be and who they say they are. That they have integrity. This is a sort of self-honesty, where they understand who they are and their outward face matches their inner face. What they say behind your back matches what they say to your face. What they say they believe in and support doesn't change depending on what crowd they're in or who they're talking to. They are themselves when they are with you and what they present to you is not a facade designed to influence you in some way. At the other end of the integrity scale someone is regarded as a hypocrite or a fake, which basically says they someone mainatins a false front used to manipulate or deceive the people they are interacting with for their own ends.

Lastly, you could be saying that you believe that they won't hurt you, betray you, and will be there for you when you need them to be. We call this loyalty. This is a combination of support, help and the ability to make personal sacrifice to benefit a person you care about. If you get drunk in a bar one night, they'll get you home okay. If you get into trouble with the police, they'll bail you out. I don't need to go into this, you know what loyalty is. At the extreme end of the spectrum on the other side, I suppose you'd call a person mercenary or self-serving if they lacked all loyalty.

     In any event, I tend to view the three major components of trust as being reliability, integrity and loyalty. Interestingly enough, these are also the core components of honor, but this could spin off into an entirely different dissertation.

     As a second aside ... none of these three attributes are necessarily good or evil. They can be used either way. A perfectly reliable person can be a serial killer. ("I'm going to kill you at 6:00 PM on Friday by pulling your intestines out of your nose.") You can be a complete self-centered asshole and still have integrity, as long as you can be honest about it and equally assholic to everyone around you. Being flawlessly loyal to a ruthless dictator committing genocide is regarded as a crime against humanity. So theoretically, someone truly evil could still be regarded as "trustworthy".

     That being said, people do tend to have a strong regard for people who they feel are trustworthy, or honorable. Even if it's grudging because that person is on the opposite side, an enemy, or has other flaws, the regard is still there. So being trustworthy is considered a "good thing" even if you can be evil and do it.

     Now then, all of this being said, let's get down to brass tacks.

     Are there trustworthy people out there and do you know any?

     Well ... I suppose this, in part, depends on what you mean by "trustworthy". If by "trustworthy" you mean that you're looking for someone who will never hurt you, always be there for you, never lie to you, always be up front with you, and never deceive you about themselves or what they want in any way ... ummm ... your standards are way too high. You're not looking for a Superman, you're looking for a Supergod. You'll never find that person because they don't exist. Even if someone tried, since no one is even able to be completely honest with themselves, they'll fail if you require it when they deal with you.

     If by "trustworthy" you mean someone who means well, truly likes you and will make an effort to help and support you, can be relied on to make good attempts to follow through on promises and agreements and succeeds more often than not, tries to be honest and consistent and doesn't deliberately act fake to get what they want from people ... then yes, there are millions of them out there. Now in a world of 8 plus billion, that may not make up a majority, but I personally know dozens, so I know there are a lot of trustworthy people out there.

     What I suspect people mean when they say that they don't "know anyone trustworthy" is that they "don't know anyone they can trust" ... which is a different kettle of fish. The question then is ... why can't you trust anyone you know? Which has a lot more to do with you than it does with the people around you. Sometimes it's simply an inability to open up or to let go of certain fears. Sometimes it's a self-punishment (and I've seen this more than you think) of not allowing yourself to have decent supportive people in your life. Sometimes it's something else.

     I've also recently come to realize that some people develop a rather vicious anti-trust dynamic. They drive away or create distance with the trustworthy people in their lives and attract and reward the untrustworthy. Obviously enough, this can be ... bad.

     See, at the core of this is ... you have to trust to get trust. If you can't, the trustworthy go away.

     What am I saying?

     Trust is a reward. Trust is a compliment. Withholding trust is an insult. Withholding trust hurts. When someone offers you their help, compassion, sympathy and/or support and you withdraw, refuse, distance yourself or blow them off, you are hurting them.

     And people know.

     They do.

     You don't have to look them in the eye and say "I don't trust you". When they ask you if something's wrong and you say "Nothing." and it's obvious you're lying, what you just said is "I don't trust you". When someone asks what they can do to help, or suggests something and you tell them they can't help you or (worse yet) let someone do exactly what the first person offered while you wouldn't let them, you are insulting them. You are telling them you don't trust them and, in the latter case, saying that there is someone else you would let help you. You're telling them that they don't qualify for your trust.

     This is actually a pretty harsh insult.

     If you do enough of it, even the most compassionate person will stop trying. They don't want to be rejected anymore. Rejection hurts. So if you can't trust, and you keep rebuffing the trustworthy, even if it's unconscious, the trustworthy will leave you alone. Or they'll be around but maintain a certain emotional distance, since it's the only safe thing they can do.

     Which means you'll end up surrounded by the kind of people who don't care if you trust them or not, or if you can be open with them or not, or if you can let them in or not. Basically, the unreliable, the flakes, the hypocrites, the fakes, the mercenary and the self-serving. You may also possibly get a leavening of the unempathetic and the unobservant, who can't tell that you're rejecting them or can't detect the times they should be displaying loyalty and compassion and integrity and so don't know when to offer it and so don't get rebuffed. This really isn’t a very good crowd to hang out with, especially if your goal is to be surrounded by the trustworthy.

     Also ... keep in mind ... to the trustworthy, trust is of critical importance. Someone with a lot of integrity, reliability and loyalty doesn’t deal well with someone who isn’t up front, aboveboard and straightforward with them. They feel uneasy when things get shifty. This is one of the key parts of “you have to trust to get trust”. If what you do or the way you act radiates the “I don’t trust you” dynamic, the trustworthy feel uncomfortable. So they’ll always be edgy around you.

     The boil down is, if you feel you don’t know anyone trustworthy … I don’t think it’s them ... I think it’s you. You need to take a long look at what you’re doing and how you react and who exactly you’re choosing to spend your time with.

     If what you’re telling me is you’re surrounded by liars, cheats, hypocrites, fakes and flakes ... well ... time to find a new crowd to hang out with.

     If what you’re telling me is, you can’t find anyone who is trustworthy ... then you need to take a long look at just what sort of dynamic you create in your interpersonal interactions ... and why you can’t be comfortable around anyone who is trustworthy.

     If what you’re telling me is that no one in the world is trustworthy because everyone is innately evil, vile and vicious ... ummm ... I’d say you need to expand your worldview ... but there is a possibility that I’m wrong and everyone is evil and I’ve somehow missed it.

     But I doubt that.

     Finally, and to wrap things up … in the immortal words of David Drake: “Everyone has to trust something – even if it’s not trustworthy.” People have a need to have someone or something they can rely on. If you can’t find anything that you can trust, you will manufacture something. Which will ultimately fail you since it’s entirely fiction, which will only serve to exacerbate the problem down the road. Try taking a step back, and looking around and seeing if you can find someone who has even one or two of the three attributes. Try spending more time with them. The trustworthy tend to flock together. 

     Beyond that ... trustworthiness can be learned. If you spend all your time with reliable, compassionate, loyal people ... it rubs off on you. If you spend your time with unreliable self-serving fakes ... parts of you erode away (I have a whole other diatribe on this one so I’ll skip the rant that goes here).

     It’s not like anyone has the ability to completely stop reaching out and trying ... the best I can suggest is to try and make an educated effort rather than one based on random chance or impulse. 

     The trustworthy are out there.

     I see them every day.

     The truly trustworthy enjoy feeling like they’ve helped people. They also enjoy feeling trusted. 

     This means that they’re looking for you.

     Give it a shot.